Impacts of climate change on animal welfare

Abstract

Abstract Climate change has a significant impact on domesticated and wildlife animals globally. Projections for a 2°C rise in atmospheric temperature will result in catastrophic impacts globally. Animal welfare is an integral component of human-animal interaction and it is of paramount importance for wildlife rehabilitation and domestic animals. Animal welfare can be assessed using the five domains model, which includes nutrition, environment, physical health, behaviour, and mental attributes of an animal’s response to environmental change. Researchers use some of these domain attributes to evaluate the effects of stress on their animals and to improve the management and welfare of animals. Although there are variations in how animals respond biologically to stress, in general, the five domains model provides a robust tool for research use, and to evaluate the proximate effects of climatic variability on animals. In this review, our research group (The Stress Lab; www.edwardstresslab.org ) presents a series of wildlife and domesticated animal examples to showcase how climate change impacts animal welfare. We provide examples of animals from various countries, across both aquatic and terrestrial systems, and provide an overview of the impacts of climate change on each of the five domains of animal welfare. We hope that future researchers will apply the animal welfare domains to evaluate how climate change impacts animals, and further research will pave the way to the protection of animals from the catastrophic impacts of climate change.